Sigbritt LÃ¶thberg, a 75 year old woman who lives in Karlstad, Sweden, has a blistering 40 Gigabits per second connection, many thousands of times faster than the average residential link. She is the first home user who has experienced such a high speed. Her son, internet legend Peter LÃ¶thberg, along with Karlstad StadsnÃ¤t, the local council’s network arm, has arranged the connection. “This is more than just a demonstration” said network boss Hafsteinn Jonsson. “As a network owner, we’re trying to persuade internet operators to invest in faster connections. And Peter LÃ¶thberg wanted to show how you can build a low price, high capacity line over long distances”.
Sigbritt will now be able to enjoy 1,500 high definition HDTV channels simultaneously. Or, if there is nothing worth watching there, she will be able to download a full high definition DVD in just two seconds.
The secret behind Sigbritt’s ultra-fast connection is a new modulation technique which allows data to be transferred directly between two routers up to 2,000 kilometres apart, with no intermediary transponders. According to Karlstad StadsnÃ¤t the distance is, in theory, unlimited – there is no data loss as long as the fibre is in place. “I want to show that there are other methods than the old fashioned ways such as copper wires and radio, which lack the possibilities that fibre has” said Peter LÃ¶thberg, who now works at Cisco.
Cisco contributed to the project but the point, said Hafsteinn Jonsson, is that fibre technology makes such high speed connections technically and commercially viable. “The most difficult part of the whole project was installing Windows on Sigbritt’s PC” said Jonsson.